Mother’s Day is no longer just a cultural moment for brands. It has become one of the biggest storytelling seasons in influencer marketing. Every May, Instagram feeds fill with parenting reels, emotional campaigns, family-centred collaborations, and creators documenting the realities of motherhood. But behind the surge in content lies a larger shift in advertising itself  one where relatability is beginning to matter more than perfection. Influencing India spoke to PR founders, marketing experts, and mom influencers to understand why motherhood-led storytelling has become one of the most trusted and commercially valuable spaces in the creator economy. According to Gaurav Pandey, founder of Gaurav Pandey Media Company, the rise of mom influencers reflects a broader trust crisis in digital advertising. A 2024 survey by iCubesWire found that 53 per cent of consumers do not trust influencer content at all. Yet another report by The Influencer Marketing Factory showed that

Some solo PR operators are pushing back against the freelancer label, arguing it undersells the scale, strategy and client relationships involved in running a one-person or small-team communications business. Elle Kress, founder of WorkTribes, a network of freelance PRs micro PR agencies, prompted discussion with a recent LinkedIn post, arguing that many independent PR professionals are not simply picking up ad hoc work between jobs but running serious PR businesses. Kress, who also founded the Sydney-based micro PR agency HEY, GOOD NEWS, insists the distinction between a freelancer and a micro agency is not just semantic. “There’s a few ways to differentiate a freelancer with a micro agency,” she told Influencing. “A freelancer will be paid based on their time. Whereas a micro agency, much like an agency, is paid on deliverables. That enables a micro agency to scale.” Kress said another distinction was that freelancers were often directed by what a client needed from

Monday, 11 May 2026 #1  ·  Front Page  ·  Breaking news PM Modi Calls for Pandemic-era Austerity Drive By Nandita Mishra, Prasanta Saha   ·   The Economic Times  ·  Page 1 Prime Minister Modi has urged the government to conserve foreign exchange by avoiding non-critical gold purchases and cutting fuel and fertiliser usage, invoking pandemic-era fiscal discipline. The report details specific directives issued to ministries and the broader macroeconomic rationale, including rising crude oil import costs. The story connects the austerity push to Gulf Crisis-inflated India oil import bills. The story goes beyond a press release by providing specific policy directives and situating them within the broader Gulf-driven inflation context, demonstrating solid access to official briefings and meaningful consequence framing. #2  ·  Front Page / National  ·  In-depth feature India Clears

Three roles at TwentyTwo Ashton Tuckerman, the General Manager of Brisbane-based TwentyTwo Digital, has announced on LinkedIn that there are “three open roles [at] one very good agency”. She’s “on the lookout for clever, curious people who care about doing good work, learning heaps, thinking critically, having a laugh (lots of them), and holding themselves to a high standard.” She also says the available roles might be well-suited to PRs who are “in-house, feeling bored, seeking a momentum shift” or “someone with great ideas but no room to influence things” or someone who is “looking for a team you can learn with and from ready to join an agency that’s growing up, not burning out”. The three roles on offer are: Digital Marketing Specialist: manage campaigns, optimise performance, analyse data, report insights and support juniors. Account Director: manage client relationships, oversee delivery, grow accounts

Mamamia has made several redundancies, with multiple members of the team departing the media company this past month, according to LinkedIn updates. Claire Murphy, Mamamia podcast host and producer since 2019, announced on LinkedIn this weekend that she had been made redundant from the organisation. Kersheka Sivakumaran, formerly Mamamia’s Head of Growth and Audience Acquisition, also announced her redundancy last week. Leah Porges, formerly a Senior Audio Producer, also departed the company in April. Claire Murphy Murphy, an experienced radio producer, journalist and announcer, hosted Mamamia’s Well podcast as well as its daily news podcast, The Quicky, and was a former executive producer of the B106 Labby, Stav and Abby Show. She also worked as a producer or announcer on DMG’s Fitzy, Claire and Jules and Maz, Dan and Shane. She wrote via LinkedIn: “I will admit I did not have redundancy on my 2026 bingo card, but you never can predict these things and so

Budget crunch: tax offsets delayed as housing concessions targeted Treasurer Jim Chalmers is set to delay a one-off tax offset until 2027 while moving to wind back housing tax concessions such as negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, with transition and grandfathering measures designed to blunt market shock. It’s a high-stakes pivot that tests Labor’s “no broken promises” credibility, but also signals a sharper focus on budget repair, inflation and housing affordability ahead of a defining budget. Covered by: Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Australian Financial Review, Australian Financial Review, The West Australian, Herald Sun, The Advertiser. One Nation shock win rattles Coalition and redraws the political map One Nation’s projected victory in the Farrer byelection is being framed as more than a protest vote, with major parties now reassessing regional anger and the Coalition’s vulnerability in once-safe territory. Coverage

In journalism and communications, where deadlines rarely wait and schedules rarely hold, motherhood doesn’t just add another responsibility; it reshapes the way work itself is experienced. For many women across newsrooms, PR teams and corporate communications, the challenge is not simply balancing roles, but constantly adjusting between them. And in that process, the definition of both work and success begins to shift. Journalist Raina Assainar describes those early years as a constant overlap of roles rather than a clean divide. “Everything revolved around balancing both career and motherhood. There were moments when I would be feeding my baby while speaking to sources and gathering information simultaneously.” The impact extended beyond routine into storytelling itself. “Earlier, every incident was just a story. After motherhood, stories carried deeper emotions,” she says, adding that she felt a stronger connection to subjects like parenting, paediatric health, b